Pebble Hunting

How Pitchers React to Home Runs

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If we learned anything from the Home Run Derby, it's that people enjoy watching home runs go far. We didn't actually learn that from the Home Run Derby. We knew that all along! It is a pretty well-established thing about baseball. I suppose we could just as easily say if we learned anything from the Home Run Derby, it's that large physical bodies such as the earth create an attractive pull whereby things that are flung up in the air will be drawn back down, the distance of flight correlating to the force exerted on the object. If you knew nothing before the Home Run Derby, you learned about gravity, and you learned that people enjoy watching big home runs. This is an introductory paragraph, and it is complete.

There is one small subset of the population we might not expect would enjoy watching big home runs: the pitchers who allow those home runs. We might not expect them to enjoy watching big home runs, but maybe they do. Maybe they have perspective on the thing. Maybe they appreciate the aesthetics of a baseball soaring impossibly deep into the sky. Maybe they're fans, just like you. Maybe not. I honestly don't know.

These are the 10 longest home runs of the first half of the season. I'm writing this post because I think you might enjoy reliving the 10 longest home runs of the first half of the season, but more than that because I'm interested in seeing the reactions of the 10 men who allowed these home runs.

This is, unfortunately, about as much look as we get at most of these pitchers. Not surprisingly, when a baseball is traveling 485 feet, the camera does not focus on the pitcher who allowed it. I think you probably know enough about me by now to know that, were I in charge of TV broadcasts, in such situations the camera absolutely would focus on the pitcher. There's no suspense in where the baseball lands; it's going to land by some seats, or past some seats. The suspense is in seeing whether the pitcher performs suppuku. We will cobble together as much footage as possible to evaluate these pitchers' reactions, but I warn you: it might get epileptic up in here.

This is the first indication that this exercise might not produce the most extraordinary reactions. Here we see Trevor Cahill turning, watching, and otherwise doing nothing out of the ordinary. He's not ignoring the occasion, but he's also not doing the Roger Rabbit or anything. Here's the telling frame:

This is Luis Mendoza dramatically underestimating what has happened in front of him. For just one second, Luis Mendoza sees that Travis Hafner has pulled the pitch, and Mendoza prepares to run over and cover first base. Then he realizes he has made not one mistake, but two mistakes. He turns and watches to see if the baseball is going to hit some baby or elderly person.

Tally: Three of three pitchers have watched.

Bonus Only Two People Sitting In The Expensive Seats Behind Home Plate reaction:

White's reaction is probably the closest thing we've seen to the classic Whiplash reaction. There is actually some real difference between White's reaction and Cahill's. Cahill watches, but he's in no hurry to watch. He knows the play is over as soon as the ball is struck. White whips around, even reorients his body to get a good look, but it's not because he wants to watch the flight, but because he is genuinely not sure if the ball is going to fly out. In fact, once he determines that it is going out, he looks away and gets to work blaming the mound.

Alex White is still young. The longer he pitches in Coors Field, the more he'll be able to tell which of the fly balls he allows are home runs (all of them) and which aren't (none of them).

Tally: It's hard to say whether he ultimately sees the ball land. He may have looked up after blaming the mound. Conservatively, though, three of four pitchers have watched.

Kuroda, if I'm not mistaken, silently challenges Miguel Cabrera to a fight. He straightens up, faces Cabrera, and does the thing where he pushes his shoulders threateningly at his foe. The move I knew in middle school as the "what what?" This home run is so disorienting to Kuroda that he threatens Miguel Cabrera With A Bat to a fight. And our second angle shows he doesn't back down:

He just stands there, staring, like the pervert who watches you from the dark corner of your bedroom, probably.

As a Little Leaguer, I heard that throwing one's glove at the ball made it an automatic triple. So for a short period of time, when an obvious home run was hit, I would simply throw my glove straight up in the air. TRIPLE! Not a homer, a triple! But that didn't work. That was not a legal move, in baseball. And that's why you rarely see anybody other than Lance Lynn attempt that strategy in the majors.

So of our 10, seven pitchers definitely watched the ball fly out, and White may or may not have. About three-quarters of pitchers like to watch extremely long home runs. About one-fourth of pitchers don't like to watch extremely long home runs. About one in four Americans has seen or felt the presence of a ghost. About one in four Americans are insane.

Going waaaay back, I remember Troy Percival having a great reaction to giving up a long ball in his first season. His whole body seemed to recoil in shock, almost as if the urge to limbo beneath the blast struck him involuntarily.

Dunn crushed one in KC on Sat night and I failed to view the reaction of the pitcher. All I remember is Hawk and Stoney marveling at the sheer distance to dead center over three walls. I suspect it was one of the longer ones in the park other than during the HR Derby which doesn't really count. Dunn appears more like Hamilton. He doesn't seem to gloat or linger at home. I remember Ryne Sandberg always putting his head down and starting to run to first whether or not he crushed one or not. Peavy had a reaction to the two HR's he surrendered to Alcides Escobar. Same pitch in the same location twice with the same result. Peavy could be seen cursing at himself loudly. Now that's what I want to see from my pitcher. He should care that he just gave up a dinger. Not be so nonchalant about it and call for the ball from the catcher or umpire. Get a little fired up once in a while.